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Cancer
By, Molly Corcoran
Problem
• The cause and treatments for cancer have been discovered
and predicted but finding a cure for the deadly disease is
still on everyone’s list of unresolved problems. Cancer is
one of the most deadly diseases on Earth.
• Cancer strikes two out every three families
• The main problem about cancer is that it can affect anyone.
No one is spared from this deadly disease, not even
children.
Background info.
• Cancer develops when cells in a part of the body begin to grow out of
control and instead of growing, dividing, and dying like normal cells,
they grow, divide, and outlive the normal cells to continue to form
abnormal cells.
• Cancer is caused from damage to the DNA where the damaged part is
not repaired.
• Cancer cells often travel to other parts of the body where they begin to
grow and replace normal tissue.
• The cells become cancerous when the cells that make them up no
longer respond to the external, internal, sub cellular controls, which are
controls that restrain them and keep them in balance with all other cells
of the body.
Recent Events
• Although no cure has been found, people are still donating to certain
cancer foundations to raise money and find a cure.
• Against Breast Cancer is a charitable organization that funds research
work into the causes of breast cancer.
• The American Cancer Society is another group that helps cancer
victims with donations and research. The ACS is the largest source of
private, nonprofit cancer research funds in the US.
• The aim of the Society’s research program is to determine the causes
of cancer and to support efforts to prevent and cure the disease.
• The research program invested in 2.5 billion dollars in cancer research.
• They also provide education on cancer because knowing the facts
about cancer can also save lives.
Analysis
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With research and some analyzing we have discovered some of the causes for
cancer and how the chances of obtaining the deadly disease can be reduced.
Some ways the chances can be reduced are to change some things in a persons
lifestyle such as quitting smoking and/or eating a better diet.
Another way to reduce the chances of getting cancer is to wear sun block
when you are exposed to the sun.
Some symptoms are signs of disease, illness, injury, or injury that shows that
something is not right in the body. Some examples of this could be the chills,
weakness, achiness, shortness of breath, and a cough.
The signs and the symptoms can also show the size of the cancer, where it is,
and how much it affects the surrounding organs or structures.
Analysis cont.
For men, the chances of getting
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Prostate cancer :1 in 6
Lung: 1 in 13
Colon: 1 in 17
Leukemia: 1 in 70
Kidney: 1 in 69
Stomach: 1 in 81
For women, the
chances of getting
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Breast cancer: 1 in 7
Lung: 1 in 17
Ovary: 1 in 59
Melanoma: 1 in 82
Previous Attempts
• There are four main types of previous attempts to find a cure for
cancer. These four types are surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and
biologic therapies.
• Certain types of cancer will respond differently to different types of
treatment.
• Some other treatments besides surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation
therapy are Biological Therapies (which use the immune system to
treat the cancer), Bone marrow transplantation and peripheral blood
stem cell transplantation. Hypothermia, Lasers, photodynamic therapy
and vaccine therapy.
• Radiation therapy is used to help cure cancer, relieve symptoms alone,
or in combination with other therapies such as surgery or
chemotherapy.
Previous Attempts cont.
• Chemotherapy is a systematic treatment of cancer with
drugs that can destroy or slow the growth of cancer cells.
• But chemotherapy does have its side effects. It can cause
nausea, vomiting, painful soars in the mouth, weight loss,
and the reduction in the ability of the bone marrow to
produce red blood cells.
• Some new cancer treatments that have been approved by
the FDA are treatments like Altima, Armidex, Bexxar,
Erbitux, Eloxatin, Faslodex, Gleevec, Gliadel, Iressa,
Mesnex, Sterile talc powder, Taxotere, and Velcade.
Prediction
• Scientific evidence suggests that about one-third of the 555, 500 cancer
deaths expected to occur in 2002 will be related to nutrition, physical
inactivity, obesity, and other lifestyle factors that can be prevented.
• But I also feel that more and more people are becoming aware of the
side effects of tobacco, whether it be chewing or smoking it, more and
more people are beginning to quit.
• The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2002 about 170, 000
cancer deaths are expected to be caused by tobacco use, and about
19, 000 cancer deaths may be related to excessive alcohol use.
• Another cause of cancer that I think people are becoming more aware
of is skin cancer. Whenever we go to the beach or lay out in the sun
people carry sun block everyone is becoming more aware of the affect
of the UV rays and how they can cause damage to your body.
Solutions
• I think that the main solutions of this world- wide problem would be to
just follow all of the precautions and preventions.
• These would be things like smoking tobacco or chewing tobacco.
Tobacco can cause all different types of cancer and if everyone stopped
doing this to their bodies, probably more than half of the cancer cases
would be eliminated.
• Another prevention is to not use alcohol so excessively because this
can also do major damage on the body and increase your risks of
getting this deadly disease.
• Another solution would be that teens, adults, and children all wear sunblock with SPF in it to protect them from Ultraviolet Rays because too
many people are getting skin cancer, just because they are either too
lazy to put sun-block
Solutions cont.
• Another way to help prevent getting severe cancer would be to get
annual check ups so that the cancer can be detected in a very early
stage where it can still be treated without causing much damage to the
body.
• If everyone would just take the precautions, follow the healthy
guidelines in taking care of their bodies, and go in for annual check
ups every now and then, there would not be as many cancer patients
and if all the money raised didn’t just go to those that were unhealthy
and who brought the cancer upon themselves, the money could go
towards those who got it from their genes and other problems.
• We could also use the money to hire scientists to research cancer and
all of its components to try and find the cure for the deadly disease that
has killed so many innocent people.